


Happy Birthday, Ranger

by arcadesintheneighbourhood



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Birthday, Cake, F/M, Friendship, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14249862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadesintheneighbourhood/pseuds/arcadesintheneighbourhood
Summary: The party watches a meteor shower and eats cake on Lucas' birthday. Written for Tumblr's SFS.





	Happy Birthday, Ranger

“Alright, this is Lucas’ 14th, so we need to make this his best one yet, okay?” Mike advised as he huddled Max, Will, and Dustin outside Lucas’ house. In his hands, he held Lucas’ favorite German Chocolate cake, fresh with coconut shavings and maraschino cherries.

“And what, before, we were going to make it his worst one yet, oh wise leader?” Max cocked her head at Mike, smirking at her own remark.

“This is serious, Max! I’m not kidding around! Lucas has always been there for our birthdays, so we have to be there for his. It’s the rule of law.”

“I thought the rule of law was friends don’t lie!” Max teased, just to get a rise out of him. She had been part of the party for ten months, had abided by their rules, and knew how important they were: she always offered them the last slice of pizza before she snatched it for herself, apologized when she drew first blood, and attended every Sunday game night-but none of that meant that she didn’t love to make fun of how many rules the group had, especially to Mike.

“We have multiple rules of law!” Mike’s voice cracked as he shouted at her. Max tried to stifle her laugh. Man, was he going through puberty or what? “You know that!”

“Will you two assholes stop arguing for a second?” Dustin yelled as he rubbed his eyes, yawned, and slid down to the curb. “It’s 12 in the morning and some of us only got two hours of sleep!”

“Hey guys?” Will cleared his throat to interrupt their arguments. He pointed to his watch. 12:15. “Anyone notice that Lucas hasn’t called us back yet?”

“What!” Mike cried frantically. “Where is he? The shower’s supposed to start in like, five minutes!” 

“You guys know what happened, right?” Dustin asked as he laid down on the curb to take a nap. Leave it to Dustin to figure it out before anyone else did.

“Erica turned off his radio,” Max realized, flicking her eyes up to the top floor of the Sinclair house. Corner window, lights off. Yup, that had to be what happened. Lucas was definitely asleep. Luckily, Max knew what she had to do. She headed towards the Sinclair’s backyard.

“Where are you going?” Mike wondered as she headed to the Sinclair’s back porch.

“I’m going,” She turned to reply, tying her dangling hair into a tight ponytail. She didn’t want it to get caught on the windowsill like last time. “To get the birthday boy.”

“Just wait ‘til El comes,” Dustin offhandedly suggested. “She can just wake him up with her awesome superpowers.”

“What? No, that’s a waste of El’s powers,” Max recoiled as Mike’s face scrunched up and he concurred, “I agree!” “I can just do it myself. I’ve done it a million other times before.”

“Be careful, Max,” Will wished as Max turned back to get Lucas. Max smiled to herself. Of course nice, sweet Will would tell her to be careful about something she had done 100 times before.

Max rounded Lucas’ yard to his back porch. In one corner were the potted pink flowers and houseplants that Mrs. Sinclair had enlisted Max and Lucas to carry inside during the winter and back outside during the summer. Max smiled, remembering how Lucas had insisted on carrying the heaviest one to show her he was tough, but ended up spraining his wrist in the process. In the other corner was Lucas’ dad’s grill, which Mr. Sinclair had used to make corn on the cob and ribs for them on the Fourth of July. Max smiled, thinking about how the Sinclair family had invited her to spend “any family event she wanted” with them, including Mrs. Sinclair’s birthday at the end of July and Erica’s birthday at the beginning of August. “A summer family,” Mrs. Sinclair had told Max before she swatted her husband’s arm. “Except for this one right here. He’s born in May, just like you, Max.”

“May still counts as summer,” Mr. Sinclair argued.

“If it’s before the solstice, then it doesn’t, honey, alright?”

“My dad and I always call the end of summer May,” Max chimed in. “Summer is when there is warm weather, right? There’s warm weather in May, so I think it qualifies as summer.”

“See? If Max says summer is May, then summer is May,” Mr. Sinclair raised his glass as if giving a toast for Max’s input. “I like this girl, Lucas.”

Max wondered if Mr. Sinclair would like her so much if he knew how often she snuck in to see his son. Then again, they did love her a lot, so maybe they would look past it once they found out.

Max spotted the porch table and dragged it the edge of the house. Quickly, she jumped onto the shaky table and shifted her feet to balance her unsteadiness, just like she did on her skateboard. Reaching her hand up, she noticed it was about the height of the window lock. Perfect. She yanked the bobby pin her mom had shoved in her hair for her date with Lucas and used it to jimmy the window lock open. Click. She pulled the window open, hoisted herself up onto the ledge, and somersaulted into Lucas’ bedroom. She landed with her feet as quietly as she could, making sure she didn’t wake up the rest of the Sinclairs- especially Erica.

“Lucas,” She whispered. Even though it was August, he was buried in blankets, snoring. She rolled her eyes- her stupid stalker’s mouth was half open with drool dripping out of it.

“Lucas,” She tried again, but her boyfriend didn’t budge. Finally, she sighed, walked over to the bed to shake him awake, and hissed,

“Lucas!”

“Huh?” Lucas asked as his eyes squinted open. He sat up against his bedframe, put his glasses on, and groaned as he glanced at his clock. “Aw man, did Erica turn off my radio again?”

“Probably,” She tugged on his arm and pulled him out of bed. “Now let’s go, stalker, meteor shower’s about to start.”

“Okay, okay, just let me change.”

“No time for that. We have to go outside right now or you’ll miss it.”

“So you got to change but I don’t? Man, I thought it was my birthday.”

“Set an alarm next time and you won’t have to wear your pajamas. Now come on,” Max led him to the window. “I’ll go first so I can spot you.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Lucas nodded. Max looked back out at the porch again. The table seemed close enough for her to land on. As she scanned it over a couple more times, she felt Lucas’ soft brown eyes staring at her. 

“Hey, Max?” He began nervously. She could tell without looking at him that his lip was shaking as he spoke. “You look nice with your hair like that. I mean, not that you don’t always look nice, but um, I’ve never seen your hair like that, and I really like it and-”

“Seriously, stalker, you’re flirting with me now?”

Max turned back towards Lucas as he stammered through an excuse. She tried to resist grinning, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t. It was weird- Lucas was one of the only people who had that effect on her, who could make her smile so much, especially when he got all nervous. He was really, really cute when he got all nervous- even though he blubbered like an idiot, his hands became all trembly and his eyes widened like saucers and his voice melted into this sweet, earnest tone that made Max melt a little, if she was being honest.

“It’s fine,” She slipped her hand through his for a quick second before she perched herself on the windowsill, pushed off and-

Was pulled like a magnet down and sideways to the deck. Huh? Lucas followed Max a few seconds later, lightly landing on his feet right next to her. Sure enough, El emerged from the stairs of the deck closest to Mrs. Sinclair’s plants, blood trickling from her nose and Mike, Will and Dustin alongside her.

“See?” Dustin gestured wildly to El as they walked towards Max and Lucas. El shot Dustin a small smile, eyes twinkling. “Not a dumb use of her powers, eh?”

“El,” Lucas greeted softly as he hugged El. “I didn’t think you were going to make it! I thought Hopper didn’t let you out in Hawkins after dark.”

“He doesn’t,” El shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “I snuck out.”

“What? You snuck out? Won’t you get in trouble?”

“I’ve done it before,” El stated as she wiped her nosebleed with her sleeve.

“El!” Lucas protested. “What if Hopper finds out?”

“Don’t worry Lucas, El and I will talk with Hopper later if he notices she’s gone,” Mike extended the cake to Lucas as an offering. “Here! We brought your favorite, German Chocolate Cake.”

“No way! Your mom made it a day early?”

“Actually, we made this one ourselves. My mom is making one for our sleepover tonight. We figured that we have one cake every year, why not have two cakes this year, right?”

“Right,” Lucas beamed. God, Max thought, Could he stop beaming? He looked so cute when he was happy and it made Max’s heart jump a little too much when she saw him like that. “Wait, did you guys bring utensils?”

“Please, you think we would forget utensils,” Dustin pulled a handful of forks out of his pockets and set it on top of the cake in Lucas’ hands. “Happy, Birthday, Lucas.”

“Happy Birthday, Lucas,” Will echoed Dustin as Lucas placed the cake on the porch table. Will handed him the card Max had watched him work on for the past few weeks. “I hope you like the card.”

“Man, Will this is awesome!” Lucas praised once he opened the card and gazed Will’s artwork. Max remembered her own look of amazement when Will gave her a birthday card- a swirling image of skateboards, palm trees, and lines from Max’s favorite books. She couldn’t believe a person as smart and talented and kind as Will could exist. Lucas’ card was awesome too- Will had intricately sketched Lucas’ favorite characters from Stars Wars, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist and the He-Man Universe (that’s right, Max knew all the nerdy things he liked now) “You always make the best cards, man.”

“Not the best cards…” Will denied humbly.

“Nah, you make the best cards,” Dustin clapped him Will on the back. “Nice job, buddy.”

“Guys,” El said softly. Her muscles were tense and she was still, absolutely still, as if sensing something. Dustin was right. Her powers were super awesome. “I think it’s about to start.”

“We should eat the cake and watch then, huh?” Mike said, threading his fingers through El’s and kissing her on the forehead. The party murmured in agreement and pulled up four chairs around the table. They grabbed their forks, dug into their first mouthfuls of cake, and waited for the meteor shower to come. Mike and El cuddled next to each other in one chair, Will and Dustin sat next to each other near them, arguing about who the best artist in the world was, and Max and Lucas were next to each other like always, holding hands and touching sides. As they ate the cake together, she realized just how grateful she was for Lucas- she was so, so grateful- more than she would ever admit. Lucas was one of the best people she had ever known. He was kind and thoughtful and brave and funny. He loved his friends, and he had done everything in his power to show he would be loyal to Max last November. If Max had never met him, she would have been alone in Hawkins- she would have never had had a home. He deserved to have the best birthday ever.

And as Lucas set down his fork and wiped the chocolate off his mouth, Max leaned over, kissed his cheek, and whispered “Happy Birthday, Lucas,” just before the shooting stars began to fall across the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
